Faith in the power of voodoo — sometimes called juju — is deeply ingrained in West African culture. It's a direct link to ancient ancestor-based beliefs that include a wide variety of spirits and other supernatural entities, and it forms the base for rituals brought to the Caribbean and elsewhere. In West Africa, voodoo priests still are often used to seal financial transactions or root out suspected thieves — often with a threat of a deadly curse for the wrongdoer.
Prostitution gangs parlay this fear to their advantage, Babandede said. Thousands of women and girls seeking transport to Europe — sometimes with false promises of legal work — undergo voodoo rituals that can involve drinking blood from cuts and taking nail and hair clippings as totems.
"They are told that fleeing the traffickers will bring death to them or their family," said Babandede, who addressed a recent human trafficking conference in Turin, Italy, one of the hubs for Nigerian-based prostitution networks. "This is a heavy power over these women."
It is also something difficult for most authorities to comprehend.
The international prostitution trade in Europe is mostly built upon other methods of bondage: holding women in prison-like conditions or setting impossibly high repayment sums in exchange for their passports and IDs. For some women who manage to escape, the ordeal is finally over.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Friday, May 06, 2005
“Your thoughts aren’t written words”
“Your thoughts aren’t written words,” said my English teacher in college.
I was a science student then and English classes were a joke for us budding scientists and engineers. At least, that’s what we thought about the essay under discussion in our English textbook. Certainly we could write better than those hackneyed pen pushers could. But we indulged her because of her pretty looks, friendly demeanor, and the way she teased our brains, not to say our other senses.
The discussion was about why some people are so arrogant and think they can write better but do not put pen to paper. These people often viciously run down a written work, saying they “think” they can write better than any author can.
The teacher had earlier asked us to comment on a famous author’s essay that was in our textbook in college. She also asked what we thought about the author as a writer. We were all into Ayn Rand, Harold Robbins and even JD Salinger and thought we were literary geniuses. “Harold Robbins” was heady stuff with his characters’ sex and promiscuity, Ayn Rand stoked our ambitions to be world changers and JD Salinger, well, JD Salinger, we read because everybody said we should.
“I think I can write better than him any day,” said one hotshot blood rushing to his head.
“You “think” you can. But that is a thought. Your thoughts aren’t written words. Why don’t you sit down and write a better essay and show us?” Said the pretty Shanti Narasimhan.
That brings me to the point I want to make here.
When somebody writes something there would be hundreds, no millions, who “think” they can writer better than the writer, the hapless one who ventured into the wide world of written words. But that is just a “thought” and remains in the realm of fantasy, ideology, and dreams.
As an analogy if you can picture a beautiful painting in your mind can you draw and paint it too? Isn’t it that too simple to be true? Imagine it in the mind and, lo and behold, it is on canvas and you are a famous painter. If everybody could do that everybody would be Miachaelangelo and Rembrandt. Likewise if everybody could imagine that novel in their mind they would become great writers like Shakespeare and William Faulkner.
But the sad fact is that is not the way it is. Not everybody is Michaelangelo and William Faulkner and not every person who thinks he or she can write is a writer. Nor can they transfer their “thought” by way of motor nerves to the finger tips, coherently think and write it down and polish it enough to be read by the hawk-like eyes of the reading millions. Not everybody has the mind-to-hand co-ordination to write even a grocery list without mistakes.
No sir, if you can’t do that, then what you think remains in the realm of thought and not in the realm of “written words” and published articles. Accept it as writing’s bitter truth.
Now imagine what happens when an author works hard on his manuscript and his work is published and he gets some amount of grudging recognition.
“I “think” I can write better than him. I can write circles around him, any day.”
“I “think” he is a poor writer. I could have done better.”
“He absolutely can’t freaking write. I can “think” better than he can. I have better ideas. I would have written that piece, if I had the time.”
The learned community called reviewers just destroys hours of concentrated labor with remarks like “absolute tripe,” “not worth the money,” and “so and so should stop writing.”
All this is accompanied by a lot of jealousy, many snipings, daggers to the back of the author, and a lot of smirking. But remember the parenthetical word “think” in the above sentences. Your thoughts were just “thoughts” not “written words.” Because you didn’t sit down to create something out of nothing.
It is only when you sit down, make the fingers move, take that important step to organize your thinking, side-step the verbal pitfalls, the grammatical chasms, the lurking dangers of syntax — into which a less experienced writer can fall — is the time you learn that writing is difficult and you need a lot of experience to write well.
One thing a writer has to realize is the fact that all his or her work will be judged by people who are poor writers who mistakenly think they can write better. A writer has to blank out this potentially dangerous army of critics to progress in his or her career.
We are living in desperate times for writers. If you send your manuscripts to publishers or agents, remember, the people looking at it already think they can write and “think” better than you. So you have to be absolutely, undoubtedly, brilliant to impress them.
Even if the poor and harried writer makes some progress, is published by some publisher at last, there will be people who say, “He or she can’t write.” They said it about Tom Woolf, a writer I consider one of the best writers alive. They will say it about you, too, when you are published. Don’t let it deter you.
At that time remember to say to yourself, “People, your thoughts are just thought. They aren’t written words. I wrote it and that makes all the difference.”
“Your thoughts aren’t written words,” said my English teacher in college.
I was a science student then and English classes were a joke for us budding scientists and engineers. At least, that’s what we thought about the essay under discussion in our English textbook. Certainly we could write better than those hackneyed pen pushers could. But we indulged her because of her pretty looks, friendly demeanor, and the way she teased our brains, not to say our other senses.
The discussion was about why some people are so arrogant and think they can write better but do not put pen to paper. These people often viciously run down a written work, saying they “think” they can write better than any author can.
The teacher had earlier asked us to comment on a famous author’s essay that was in our textbook in college. She also asked what we thought about the author as a writer. We were all into Ayn Rand, Harold Robbins and even JD Salinger and thought we were literary geniuses. “Harold Robbins” was heady stuff with his characters’ sex and promiscuity, Ayn Rand stoked our ambitions to be world changers and JD Salinger, well, JD Salinger, we read because everybody said we should.
“I think I can write better than him any day,” said one hotshot blood rushing to his head.
“You “think” you can. But that is a thought. Your thoughts aren’t written words. Why don’t you sit down and write a better essay and show us?” Said the pretty Shanti Narasimhan.
That brings me to the point I want to make here.
When somebody writes something there would be hundreds, no millions, who “think” they can writer better than the writer, the hapless one who ventured into the wide world of written words. But that is just a “thought” and remains in the realm of fantasy, ideology, and dreams.
As an analogy if you can picture a beautiful painting in your mind can you draw and paint it too? Isn’t it that too simple to be true? Imagine it in the mind and, lo and behold, it is on canvas and you are a famous painter. If everybody could do that everybody would be Miachaelangelo and Rembrandt. Likewise if everybody could imagine that novel in their mind they would become great writers like Shakespeare and William Faulkner.
But the sad fact is that is not the way it is. Not everybody is Michaelangelo and William Faulkner and not every person who thinks he or she can write is a writer. Nor can they transfer their “thought” by way of motor nerves to the finger tips, coherently think and write it down and polish it enough to be read by the hawk-like eyes of the reading millions. Not everybody has the mind-to-hand co-ordination to write even a grocery list without mistakes.
No sir, if you can’t do that, then what you think remains in the realm of thought and not in the realm of “written words” and published articles. Accept it as writing’s bitter truth.
Now imagine what happens when an author works hard on his manuscript and his work is published and he gets some amount of grudging recognition.
“I “think” I can write better than him. I can write circles around him, any day.”
“I “think” he is a poor writer. I could have done better.”
“He absolutely can’t freaking write. I can “think” better than he can. I have better ideas. I would have written that piece, if I had the time.”
The learned community called reviewers just destroys hours of concentrated labor with remarks like “absolute tripe,” “not worth the money,” and “so and so should stop writing.”
All this is accompanied by a lot of jealousy, many snipings, daggers to the back of the author, and a lot of smirking. But remember the parenthetical word “think” in the above sentences. Your thoughts were just “thoughts” not “written words.” Because you didn’t sit down to create something out of nothing.
It is only when you sit down, make the fingers move, take that important step to organize your thinking, side-step the verbal pitfalls, the grammatical chasms, the lurking dangers of syntax — into which a less experienced writer can fall — is the time you learn that writing is difficult and you need a lot of experience to write well.
One thing a writer has to realize is the fact that all his or her work will be judged by people who are poor writers who mistakenly think they can write better. A writer has to blank out this potentially dangerous army of critics to progress in his or her career.
We are living in desperate times for writers. If you send your manuscripts to publishers or agents, remember, the people looking at it already think they can write and “think” better than you. So you have to be absolutely, undoubtedly, brilliant to impress them.
Even if the poor and harried writer makes some progress, is published by some publisher at last, there will be people who say, “He or she can’t write.” They said it about Tom Woolf, a writer I consider one of the best writers alive. They will say it about you, too, when you are published. Don’t let it deter you.
At that time remember to say to yourself, “People, your thoughts are just thought. They aren’t written words. I wrote it and that makes all the difference.”
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
This is not about the movie but about the seventies. I was in school and college and inspired by some excellent teachers I and a few friends also became leftists. But later I changed tracks as did my friends. They are all pucca capitalists now running advertising agencies, publishing houses and even industries.
The Movie 'Reds' depicts Russia at the time of the 1917 October revolution and also makes a scathing comment about Communism. The film was based on a biography of American journalist John Reed, named 'Romantic Revolutionary', published in 1975. Reed, played by Warren Beatty in the film, had also written a celebrated book on the events surrounding the revolution, 'Ten Days that Shook the World'.
Emma Goldman, John Reed's friend, arrived in Russia in January 1920 and like Reed, soon became disillusioned by the course the revolution was taking and her initial feelings of euphoria soon degenerated into disappointment as revolution was followed by dictatorship, hope by despair.All went to prove that Marxism is good in theory but lost a lot when translated into action and governance.
This struck a chord when Sunil mentioned about people who changed tracks.
The Movie 'Reds' depicts Russia at the time of the 1917 October revolution and also makes a scathing comment about Communism. The film was based on a biography of American journalist John Reed, named 'Romantic Revolutionary', published in 1975. Reed, played by Warren Beatty in the film, had also written a celebrated book on the events surrounding the revolution, 'Ten Days that Shook the World'.
Emma Goldman, John Reed's friend, arrived in Russia in January 1920 and like Reed, soon became disillusioned by the course the revolution was taking and her initial feelings of euphoria soon degenerated into disappointment as revolution was followed by dictatorship, hope by despair.All went to prove that Marxism is good in theory but lost a lot when translated into action and governance.
This struck a chord when Sunil mentioned about people who changed tracks.
Friday, April 15, 2005
This is a post made on Caferati message board about the corruption of art forms and culture that is reproduced here just to show my view point
Richa, I never knew the term, “Randi” meant a woman of noble birth, having known it to have only pejorative meaning.
What I am against is the “randification” of art forms. Hardworking artists work over the centuries to raise the levels and standards of art forms to a higher level and along comes some hotshot upstart who “randifies” the whole establishment. A noble art form is turned on its head into a vocation of good for nothings and wastrels. In other words “noble women” have been reduced to “randies.”
All art forms should be open to experimentation and change. But that doesn’t mean we should accept all experimentation as hallowed. That would be akin to “randifying” the noble women of the earlier royal gharanas.
What we see today is a total breakdown of the establishment of criticism. Remember, I don’t mean writing per se but the fine art of criticism, which is an art in itself. I used to read columns on music reviews, drama reviews, art review, in newspapers earlier. Audiences were led by the hands of these learned critics about what to patronize and what to rubbish. Their criticism was the last word and anything they didn’t like perished. So the artist and creator used to be literally afraid of them. Thus one knew what is art and what is trash and garbage.
But today they don’t exist. Many newspapers do not have music, art, literary criticism columns anymore. So people like us are left with nothing to call a “benchmark” to decide what is good and what is not. That is the fine difference that I have been talking about.
Dalip, I think that answers your question about “who sets the standards” and Sonia that answers your question about “who cares.” We all should care because it affects all of us and we writers are the ones to write and express our angst and anguish. I am talking of my teenage days in the sixties and seventies, not the last millennium or the last century. There was enough literary, music, and dramatic awareness then to decide what is art and what is trash and garbage. Period.
Even literature has its detractors. So when somebody comes on board and writes in the Jamican “Netin, newayz, me no tink thatz good” style I and a few other Caferati members raised enough heat to make them vanish.
Sonia remember Acid rock? Acid jazz will also die that natural death. So don’t worry. As you rightly said these undesirable sub-cultures will be given the short shrift as time passes. But it is our responsibility to be aware, as writers.
Yes Max, trends in culture, literature are glacial and move a few millimeters an year. But that doesn’t mean we should stand and stare and do nothing when genres that are unacceptable should intrude and bring about “randification” of our treasured art forms.
Richa, I never knew the term, “Randi” meant a woman of noble birth, having known it to have only pejorative meaning.
What I am against is the “randification” of art forms. Hardworking artists work over the centuries to raise the levels and standards of art forms to a higher level and along comes some hotshot upstart who “randifies” the whole establishment. A noble art form is turned on its head into a vocation of good for nothings and wastrels. In other words “noble women” have been reduced to “randies.”
All art forms should be open to experimentation and change. But that doesn’t mean we should accept all experimentation as hallowed. That would be akin to “randifying” the noble women of the earlier royal gharanas.
What we see today is a total breakdown of the establishment of criticism. Remember, I don’t mean writing per se but the fine art of criticism, which is an art in itself. I used to read columns on music reviews, drama reviews, art review, in newspapers earlier. Audiences were led by the hands of these learned critics about what to patronize and what to rubbish. Their criticism was the last word and anything they didn’t like perished. So the artist and creator used to be literally afraid of them. Thus one knew what is art and what is trash and garbage.
But today they don’t exist. Many newspapers do not have music, art, literary criticism columns anymore. So people like us are left with nothing to call a “benchmark” to decide what is good and what is not. That is the fine difference that I have been talking about.
Dalip, I think that answers your question about “who sets the standards” and Sonia that answers your question about “who cares.” We all should care because it affects all of us and we writers are the ones to write and express our angst and anguish. I am talking of my teenage days in the sixties and seventies, not the last millennium or the last century. There was enough literary, music, and dramatic awareness then to decide what is art and what is trash and garbage. Period.
Even literature has its detractors. So when somebody comes on board and writes in the Jamican “Netin, newayz, me no tink thatz good” style I and a few other Caferati members raised enough heat to make them vanish.
Sonia remember Acid rock? Acid jazz will also die that natural death. So don’t worry. As you rightly said these undesirable sub-cultures will be given the short shrift as time passes. But it is our responsibility to be aware, as writers.
Yes Max, trends in culture, literature are glacial and move a few millimeters an year. But that doesn’t mean we should stand and stare and do nothing when genres that are unacceptable should intrude and bring about “randification” of our treasured art forms.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Item numbers and trash and garbage
An elaboration of the point I was making with my take on "Item numbers." I guess most people missed the point.I guess we are growing more greedy and lazy. The popular culture has invented "remixes" and "item numbers" out of sheer laziness. For them being creative was to do some "matha fodi" or "breaking of head."
Why bother? Why break your brain when you can get a curvaceous model to suggestively mime the sexual act and have people ogle.The question is where do you draw the line between art (in its pure form, e.g., literature) and trash and garbage. I guess until the wide world accepts "item numbers" as an art form (which they never will) let us keep calling it trash and garbage and generally debunk the laziness and greed that go behind it.Somebody rightly said that BPO and outsourcing units in the developed countries are giving away their work to "call centers" in India because of greed and laziness. Gartner (a research firm that is an authority on such matters) has said that 80 per cent of such companies will fail because of their extra laziness in not managing their outsourced operations. Halleluiah, I might say, so they will ultimately fail, which they deservedly should.
So greed and laziness will also be the undoing of the Indian pop music industry (because of remixes, etc) and our movie industry (because of item numbers, rehashed plots etc.) and ultimately they will produce many failures and only a smattering of success! A phenomenon that is already happening.But will they learn? None of the recent Bollywood releases this year have been successes, accordingly to a newspaper report.
The odd runaway hit has the vital ingredient of a good story, and that is the secret of its success.But the purveyors or trash will never learn. Once greed and laziness enters their minds it will remain and remain forever. So be prepared to accept more trash and garbage.
Explore new themes, encourage new talent who look at life through their unique prismatic viewpoints, let there by an ocean of ideas from which to choose serendipitous pearls, discuss the story (instead of inviting the bombshell actor to the casting couch!), do a little honest labor and don't be greedy. Draw the line when somebody is trashing and garbaging your medium. And don’t be armchair critics, go out and fight your battles, even in message boards like this. My advise to the purveyors of trash and garbage.
An elaboration of the point I was making with my take on "Item numbers." I guess most people missed the point.I guess we are growing more greedy and lazy. The popular culture has invented "remixes" and "item numbers" out of sheer laziness. For them being creative was to do some "matha fodi" or "breaking of head."
Why bother? Why break your brain when you can get a curvaceous model to suggestively mime the sexual act and have people ogle.The question is where do you draw the line between art (in its pure form, e.g., literature) and trash and garbage. I guess until the wide world accepts "item numbers" as an art form (which they never will) let us keep calling it trash and garbage and generally debunk the laziness and greed that go behind it.Somebody rightly said that BPO and outsourcing units in the developed countries are giving away their work to "call centers" in India because of greed and laziness. Gartner (a research firm that is an authority on such matters) has said that 80 per cent of such companies will fail because of their extra laziness in not managing their outsourced operations. Halleluiah, I might say, so they will ultimately fail, which they deservedly should.
So greed and laziness will also be the undoing of the Indian pop music industry (because of remixes, etc) and our movie industry (because of item numbers, rehashed plots etc.) and ultimately they will produce many failures and only a smattering of success! A phenomenon that is already happening.But will they learn? None of the recent Bollywood releases this year have been successes, accordingly to a newspaper report.
The odd runaway hit has the vital ingredient of a good story, and that is the secret of its success.But the purveyors or trash will never learn. Once greed and laziness enters their minds it will remain and remain forever. So be prepared to accept more trash and garbage.
Explore new themes, encourage new talent who look at life through their unique prismatic viewpoints, let there by an ocean of ideas from which to choose serendipitous pearls, discuss the story (instead of inviting the bombshell actor to the casting couch!), do a little honest labor and don't be greedy. Draw the line when somebody is trashing and garbaging your medium. And don’t be armchair critics, go out and fight your battles, even in message boards like this. My advise to the purveyors of trash and garbage.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Thought piece – Are “Item Numbers” over-stepping the limit?
Saw Sanjay Dutt’s and Koena Mitra’s act in the song “O, Saki, Saki” from the film “Musafir.” I had seen excerpts of it earlier, but it’s the first time I am seeing it in its entirety. The song is a rage with the youth, my own son being a cult follower of the latest trends. He has downloaded a ring tone on my mobile phone and plays it often.
It irritates me to hear the tune every time I receive a call. The irritation became even more pronounced after today’s viewing of the entire song. Here was I doing my daily morning exercise and my eyes nearly popped out on seeing the visuals. Shocking, would be an understatement, in my opinion.
There are no appropriate words to express my outrage and indignation at this song. It pushes the limits and then proceeds to cross them. No, not the fine boundary, but the extreme limiting line between gratuitous violence, murder and mayhem. And it is sure to spoil the impressionable youth, like my son, who will be persuaded to believe that violence, sex and indecency is okay. Moreover, it sets out to glorify deadly and insidious habits that can be harmful for health as proved by science and medicine.
First the thrusting, and hip wiggling Koena Mitra is constantly shown gyrating, her panties on view, tantalizingly. “Item number” the purveyors of such stuff would say. But how would she like being called an “Item number” on her face. She is naked except for some shiny underwear stuff that adds to her allure. Okay, a little eroticism is needed to sell a movie, but this is outright sexual provocation, nothing else.
Then Sanjay Dutt brandishes his knife. Then the dancers come out with weapons like scythes, swords, machetes, and make motions like killing each other and the sexy Koena. Suddenly, there are enough weapons on the screen to fight an entire medieval war.
Come on; is this okay to show the deprived millions who watch these acts of suggested violence? I mean, the film is already full of such stuff, showing enough gore, but do you want to show violence in a song too? They say it is harmless, I don’t think it is harmless when it would even incite one person to think about violent acts.
“Oh sharabi, kya sharabi, jo nasheme na rahe.”
“What is a drunk if he isn’t intoxicated?”
Now, don’t tell me these lyrics aren’t provocative. It is, in the extreme. It gives the impression that to drink is to be in a state of bliss. True Indian poets have poeticized intoxication in their works, but this is pushing the limits further. Dutt is shown in a state of drunkenness. And he passes the blade of his knife around Mitra’s throat several times. If it isn’t provocative and violent what is?
Drunkenness, lewdness, lechery, provocation to sex is what we see when we switch on the television. Is this needed? Isn’t it incitement? When such questions are asked the songwriters, directors hide behind the curtain of artistic freedom. Is this art? Not by any stretch of the imagination, I think.
Would somebody do something about this? I don’t know what the public think. But the makers of such “Item numbers” would even claim that it is artistic and that what is elevating. Being hypocritical comes naturally to the Bollywood denizens.
Over to you Caferati, what do you think?
Saw Sanjay Dutt’s and Koena Mitra’s act in the song “O, Saki, Saki” from the film “Musafir.” I had seen excerpts of it earlier, but it’s the first time I am seeing it in its entirety. The song is a rage with the youth, my own son being a cult follower of the latest trends. He has downloaded a ring tone on my mobile phone and plays it often.
It irritates me to hear the tune every time I receive a call. The irritation became even more pronounced after today’s viewing of the entire song. Here was I doing my daily morning exercise and my eyes nearly popped out on seeing the visuals. Shocking, would be an understatement, in my opinion.
There are no appropriate words to express my outrage and indignation at this song. It pushes the limits and then proceeds to cross them. No, not the fine boundary, but the extreme limiting line between gratuitous violence, murder and mayhem. And it is sure to spoil the impressionable youth, like my son, who will be persuaded to believe that violence, sex and indecency is okay. Moreover, it sets out to glorify deadly and insidious habits that can be harmful for health as proved by science and medicine.
First the thrusting, and hip wiggling Koena Mitra is constantly shown gyrating, her panties on view, tantalizingly. “Item number” the purveyors of such stuff would say. But how would she like being called an “Item number” on her face. She is naked except for some shiny underwear stuff that adds to her allure. Okay, a little eroticism is needed to sell a movie, but this is outright sexual provocation, nothing else.
Then Sanjay Dutt brandishes his knife. Then the dancers come out with weapons like scythes, swords, machetes, and make motions like killing each other and the sexy Koena. Suddenly, there are enough weapons on the screen to fight an entire medieval war.
Come on; is this okay to show the deprived millions who watch these acts of suggested violence? I mean, the film is already full of such stuff, showing enough gore, but do you want to show violence in a song too? They say it is harmless, I don’t think it is harmless when it would even incite one person to think about violent acts.
“Oh sharabi, kya sharabi, jo nasheme na rahe.”
“What is a drunk if he isn’t intoxicated?”
Now, don’t tell me these lyrics aren’t provocative. It is, in the extreme. It gives the impression that to drink is to be in a state of bliss. True Indian poets have poeticized intoxication in their works, but this is pushing the limits further. Dutt is shown in a state of drunkenness. And he passes the blade of his knife around Mitra’s throat several times. If it isn’t provocative and violent what is?
Drunkenness, lewdness, lechery, provocation to sex is what we see when we switch on the television. Is this needed? Isn’t it incitement? When such questions are asked the songwriters, directors hide behind the curtain of artistic freedom. Is this art? Not by any stretch of the imagination, I think.
Would somebody do something about this? I don’t know what the public think. But the makers of such “Item numbers” would even claim that it is artistic and that what is elevating. Being hypocritical comes naturally to the Bollywood denizens.
Over to you Caferati, what do you think?
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Ron MacLarty
Ron McLarty was so convinced hewould never succeed as a novelist that after years ofobsessively churning out book after book in his basement, hesought the help of a shrink to make him stop.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/highestrated/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/leisure_mclarty_dc
Ron McLarty was so convinced hewould never succeed as a novelist that after years ofobsessively churning out book after book in his basement, hesought the help of a shrink to make him stop.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/highestrated/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/leisure_mclarty_dc
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Tilak and Jinnah worked together: "During the year Tilak had worked closely with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, one of the prominent young Muslim leaders. As a matter of fact, when the government tried in 1916 again to convict Tilak of preaching seditious doctrines, it was Jinnah who represented him before the court and won his acquittal. Tilak knew that a united India, Hindu and Muslim, could best promote India's cause, and through his efforts the 1916 Lucknow session of the Congress witnessed the development of a common programme with the Muslim League. It is because of Tilak, the organised Muslim community worked with the Congress and demanded equal position to India in the British empire. "
Section Two: "'All I wish to say is that inspite of the verdict of the Jury I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of things and it may be the will of the providence that the cause which I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.' "
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